[jliechti1]

> They key is to make the practice good practice, and not just mindless repetition.

This - it needs to be emphasized more. I feel a bit pedantic when I make this point, but I really think it's crucial.

If you read the original research, it's not 10000 hours of just practice. There is a reason many people can play golf for 30 years (and probably accumulate 10000+ hours of play), but still never even get close to shooting par. The term they use in the research is deliberate practice. The quality of the practice is just as important as the practice itself. Practice does not make perfect, practice makes things a habit. If you develop the wrong techniques in an area, you'll reach plateaus and hit a point where you can't progress. Deliberate practice requires tasks that are designed to stretch you in specific areas and have fast feedback loops so you are able to correct mistakes quickly. This is easier to apply in some domains (music, sports, etc...) than others.

[jebus989]

Absolutely right, Anders Ericsson has called Malcolm Gladwell out for misinterpreting his results for this exact reason. Not sure how widely available this is for playback but "More or Less" did a great podcast on this earlier this year: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01sqly1

[PhantomGremlin]

Here's how Jerry Rice, probably the greatest wide receiver of all time, practiced: http://jamesclear.com/jerry-rice It's a short read and very instructive.

One amazing thing is just how that practice translated into so little time in actual games. I.e. if a football team plays 20 games a year (1 hour each), and the offense is only out there half the time, then a wide receiver is playing for at most 10 hours a year. Jerry Rice played for 20 years, so that works out to 200 hours of actual game time over his entire career!